Walter Logeman: Journal
I don't have an attraction to anarchy but I do like the philosophy of anarchy to be presented accurately. This website is a good resource, and follows on well form the thinking out loud I have been doing here on the book & the movie. The image here contrasts with the end of the movie, where masses of masked people arise to challenge the state, not such a bad shift.
Anyway, an interesting way to do armchair politics.
Lots of tabs open of Firefox, this one, the origins of the current layout for this blog: Kubrick at Binary Bonsai is here cause I’m looking for a way of making the font abit smaller. But I think I need to be off the hosted WordPress site to do that. This one http://film.guardian.co.uk because it was linked to from the Kubrick theme page. While on the subject of Kubrick, we saw “Eyes Wide Shut” the other day, a friend recommended it for its “Jungian” aspect. Makes sense, the two protagonists are exploring a similar synchronous path, one in RL and the other in dreams.
The Kubrick Site & IMDB More Kubrick, and we did more too, got out Paths Of Glory, but did not really like it much. Got that from here: Movieshack – Library.
Only on Tab one of about 25! The next: Abit of vanity: Looking for the oldest entry with my name in it and found one from February 1994 and more vanity, embarrasing: 1998 Psybernet Web page
Later… never did get to blog the other tabs… nevermind.
Kubrick at Binary Bonsai . This one http://film.guardian.co.uk was linked to from the Kubrick theme page. While on the subject of Kubrick, we saw "Eyes Wide Shut" the other day, a friend recommended it for its "Jungian" aspect. Makes sense, the two protagonists are exploring a similar synchronous path, one in RL or Waking Life and the other in dreams.
The Kubrick Site & IMDB More Kubrick, and we did more too, got out Paths Of Glory, but did not really like it much. Got that from here: Movieshack – Library.
There are layers & layers of interconnection, which is one of the themes of the book / film and there is no shortage of this complexity in all the background drama & the characters, who are as engrossing as the art.
I have a theory, which has not let me down so far, that there is an inverse relationship between imagination and money. Because the more money and technology that is available to [create] a work, the less imagination there will be in it. My favorite films are those that were made on a shoestring. And they weren't adaptations of some other work, they were original pieces of cinema. All right, [Cocteau's] "La Belle Et La Bête" is an adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast" — but it was made into something very different. And I mean, John Waters, his early films, they're terrific! Because he was making them with some friends of his from Baltimore, with whatever cheap film stock he could borrow or steal. George Romero, in "Dawn of the Dead," "Day of the Dead," all the rest of them, he ingeniously used the fact that he had almost no budget to his advantage — claustrophobic sets, everyone's trapped in the cellar and the zombies are trying to dig their way in. Very inexpensive, incredibly powerful. That is where cinema really works for me.
Moore goes on to say exactly some of what I have in mind for my treatise on the difference between the movie & the film:
It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives — which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England].
Cinema Confidential News: 03/15/06
Good interview, there is so much to reflect on in this movie and portman does that: here is one example:
There was a book I read that we all ended up reading in the movie; “Cloud Atlas,” which was pretty formative to my ideas about violence because it has this story of the Moriori Tribe, which is this non-violent tribe in New Zealand. They thought that if you commit violence, your soul would become tainted and you would become outcasts in their society. When the Europeans came, they were violent and now the Morioris don’t exist.
I have just read the original Alan Moore & David Lloyd graphic novel V for Vendetta and seen the movie. I feel like writing a treatise on the difference between the two! I am OK with both but the differences were worthwhile, and make me respect the Wachowski Brothers all over again. The did it for me in Martrix and they lost it in II and III and have it back in V (ha). I can easily echo her closing remark:
I’m looking forward to talking to people who see this movie because it provokes strong reactions from someone, and different reactions, is so interesting; to see people’s different interpretations and reactions is so nice to hear.
Here is a backstory about Alan Moore & his distancing himself from the movie.
PS: I am following up on the Moriori!
It’s not always who draws wins – Saturday entertainment – Times Online
Looks interesting. To read.
AFI’s 100 YEARS…100 MOVIE QUOTES, loved looking at this list, some great quotes, some just part of the language, but I did not know where they came from. Like this one:
Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.
Dracula 1931. I only know the phrase from the Cassandra Wilson song. And “Round up the usual suspects” – Cassablanca. Makes me want to see some old movies just to hear the quotes!
While at City Lights I got drawn into Dashiell Hammett because of the local colour. On the plane home I read The Glass Key, quite fun. Apparently the basis for the Cohen’s Miller’s Crossing (1990). The original movie: The Glass Key, (1942), sounds good, but not available in the store here. Nice review of it by Alexander Walker
I almost cry when I see and hear the vanished virtues of the old-style Hollywood thriller: terseness, tautness, a laconic attitude to life, but also a commitment to the values that make it worth living and not just killing for.
This bio: Dashiell Hammett [1894-1961] is useful. The man was persecuted in the McCarthy era. Here is a pic I found:
I get onto a roll, I now have a video out: Hammett (1982) directed by Wim Wenders. Perhaps more on that later.
Later: It was awful!
“Plot Outline: John Nash, diagnosed as paranoid-schizophrenic, goes on to win a Nobel Prize for work on game theory.”
Warning: Spoilers ahead:
Of course I was entertained. That said, this is the second time in a short time I have seen such a form of inner aggression in the name of a psychological solution on the screen. Fight Club was the other movie – similar in concept.
The characters in John Nash’s psyche (as shown in the movie) had little connection with his own history and dynamics. In a way his isolation in the outside world spills into his inner life and in the name of sanity he treats his inner child, except for one parting moment, not unlike his own real son – with neglect.
As a therapist I have worked with people with similar dynamics. It is almost a law of the inner world that these characters have good intentions poorly executed. Role reversal and re-education can make them effective players in the soul.
So, I found it less than satisfying that these potentially interesting and rich aspects of the psyche – the best friend, the inner child, and the great protector were all dismissed as having no value.
It is a folly to interpret the symbolic as literal. Are there hidden codes in magazines? Are they dangerous? Yes. The consumer society promoted in the magazines kills people. He was not so silly really! A case of category confusion.
On the positive side, Nash’s solution was far better than the one the psychiatric system was trying to impose. Still, I would have liked to have been his therapist!